Sometime after Alexander the Great's death, his remains were buried in a large mausoleum in Alexandria, the location of which remains one of history's greatest mysteries.

In the fourth century A.D., at the height of the dispute between Christians and pagans, John Chrysostom, the famous and talkative archbishop of Constantinople, demanded that his opponents show him where the tomb of Alexander the Great was located. The Christians knew well that the founder of their religion was buried in Jerusalem, on the spot where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had just been erected. They could not accept the fact that the grave of the greatest hero of antiquity seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, as well as Alexander's empire, Alexandria, the place where his remains were kept many centuries ago.

Since then, despite the persistent searches of dozens of archaeologists and researchers, the location of Alexander's tomb has become one of the unsolvable mysteries in history.

Ancient manuscripts describe the funeral of Alexander the Great in great detail. After his death in Babylon in 323 BC, which occurred under very murky circumstances (there were even rumors of poisoning), his body was carefully embalmed with honey and a lavish funeral procession was organized to transport the remains to Macedonia.

However, Ptolemy I, Alexander's powerful general, changed his original intentions and decided to leave the body of the great Macedonian conqueror in Egypt. In this way he hoped to legitimize his own authority over the Nile country, where he had organized his own state.

Alexander the Great's remains remained for some time in Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt. According to one version, they were placed in a magnificent stone sarcophagus intended for the repose of the Egyptian pharaoh Nectaneb II. The sarcophagus remained unclaimed because its future occupant fled to Ethiopia during the Persian invasion of Egypt.

The sarcophagus was located at Saqqara, one of the most famous necropolises of Memphis. It was placed inside a building built in honor of the god Serapis and located near the temple of Nectanebo. The approach to the temple was adorned with a colonnade of limestone statues, each of which was dedicated to one of the Greek sages. It is quite possible that among them was a statue of Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great. This group of statues lined up in a semicircle symbolically guarded an important sanctuary, presumably the tomb of the Macedonian sovereign.

Between 290 and 280 BC, Ptolemy II, son of Ptolemy I and heir to the Egyptian throne, ordered the remains to be transported to Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander. There, the famous conqueror was turned into an object of religious cult, served by a whole “staff” of his own priests.

Around 215 BC, Ptolemy IV built a large mausoleum called Sema or Soma - “tomb” - where the remains of Alexander the Great were transferred.

It was here that Julius Caesar, Augustus, Germanicus (Augustus' grandnephew), and the emperors Caligula, Vespasian, Titus, Hadrian, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla came to honor Alexander the Great.

Very little information has survived regarding Alexander's last mausoleum. The grandiose monument was located in the center of the city, very close to the intersection of the two main streets that defined the city plan of the capital. As for the architecture, the great Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of antiquity, was probably taken as a basis.

In the year 365, an earthquake struck the city, followed by a tsunami. The natural disaster had truly irreparable consequences for the entire city. It is very likely that it was the cause of the fact that today we can not determine the exact location of the tomb of Alexander the Great.

However, there is a version that the mausoleum survived the tsunami, but did not survive the wave of destruction of pagan temples and symbols, which unfolded during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great, at the end of the IV century.

In the early 16th century, the geographer and traveler Leo the African claimed to have discovered Alexander's tomb in a small chapel in the midst of the ruins of the ancient center of Alexandria.

European travelers of the 18th century noticed that in the courtyard of the mosque of Atarin, built on the site of the ancient church of St. Athanasius, there was a small shrine sacredly revered by the locals. According to legend it was none other than the tomb of Alexander the Great. It was this local legend that formed the basis of the assumption that the impressive sarcophagus of gray granite discovered during the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt was the final resting place of Alexander the Great.

However, a few years later, Champollion's deciphering of hieroglyphic writing allowed to read the inscriptions on the sarcophagus. It turned out that the sarcophagus actually belonged to Nektaneb II.

The search for Alexander's tomb continued throughout the 19th century. Heinrich Schliemann, the man who gave the world a glimpse of ancient Troy, was not left behind. He visited Alexandria in 1888. His goal was to discover the remains under the mosque of the Prophet Daniel (Nabi Daniel), but the local religious authorities refused him permission to excavate.

Soon after, a certain Ioannides claimed to have discovered the tombs of Alexander and Cleopatra in a Ptolemaic necropolis, and went so far as to claim that the names of their occupants were inscribed on the bronze doors of the tombs.

But perhaps the most famous of those who wanted to find the tomb of Alexander the Great was Stelios Komoutsos, a waiter. The case was already in the middle of the 20th century. Driven by a passionate desire to find the remains of Alexander the Great, he spent his entire fortune on requests for the right to excavate. In total, 322 requests were sent to him. From 1956 until his death in 1991, he never stopped searching for the tomb. And yet, none of these attempts bore fruit.

The mystery of Alexander the Great's tomb, jealously guarded by the ancient Gods, remains unsolved.